There is a growing need to provide water systems throughout the country with various safety devices to protect individual users from hazards such as contaminated backflow and dangerous pressure situations. Various flow conditioning devices are available for attachment in water lines to avoid these hazards.
For example, serious and sometimes fatal conditions can occur when one water branch becomes overused. An instance has occurred where a water main, opened for fire-fighting purposes, produced such a heavy draw that a reverse flow occurred at a distant branch where a chemical pesticide was being used in conjunction with a water hose. The pesticide was consequently drawn into the water supply. Later, when the water main was closed off and normal pressure resumed, the poisoned water became available for use, not only to the residents previously using the pesticide, but also to other neighboring residences. The result was nearly catastrophic. The solution to the above situation is to simply place backflow preventer valves at each branch leading from a central water main. Backflow preventers will not allow reverse drainage of water lines that could otherwise siphon or suction hazardous materials into the main line. The difficulty comes in the placement of such preventers.
Many municipalities have come to the conclusion that backflow preventers are to be supplied and installed by the municipality rather than by individual homeowners. The preferred sight for installation, therefore, is along with each water meter typically supplied for each residence or place of business. These meters are often found in meter pits, mounted to cradles that enable removal of the meters for periodic testing and calibration. The pit diameter is seldom much larger than the meter cradle, so a serious problem has developed in proper placement of backflow preventers within meter pits. This problem has been addressed by the present inventors and is not believed to have been previously addressed in any prior reference known to the inventors.
Devices have been developed to reset flow meters. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,935,736 to Enright, discloses a meter setter that has the capacity of changing the elevational position of a flow meter from the bottom of a meter pit toward the top opening thereof. A version of this arrangement also includes provisions for mounting a pressure control valve. However, mounting of these devices cannot occur without substantially changing the elevational position of the water meter. Furthermore, the flow path of the water is substantially obstructed by a number of bends as it flows about a tortuous path through the pressure regulating device and water meter.
The present inventors have previously developed a resetting yoke assembly which will accommodate a meter and auxiliary equipment such as a backflow preventer and pressure regulator. However, this equipment was designed for use outside confined areas, as the yoke design occupied a considerable space and could not be adequately mounted within a pit.
There remains a need to enable resetting of a flow meter along with an auxiliary device such as a backflow preventer while minimizing interruption of fluid flow and doing so in a space no larger than that previously occupied by the meter. The device disclosed herein by the present inventors accomplishes this objective and, additionally, does so with additional capabilities of mounting an additional conditioning device such as a pressure relief valve that has also been found desirable as a safety provision in many municipalities.
Other meter resetting devices have been provided on the marketplace but are intended primarily for use in situations where there is ample space available for resetting the meters. Even so, in many of these situations, no provision is made for simultaneously mounting a safety device such as a backflow preventer, especially with the meter being carried parallel to the existing water line.